AM Broadcasting History - Various Articles

WOR Announcers Limited to Initials

This article appeared in the July 2, 1932, issue of Radio
World. It was provided by Ron Kramer.

Mere announcers at WOR, Newark, N. J., which station has studios in New
York city, are to be semi-anonymous, experimentally. The station
announced that the announcers will not identify themselves by name any
more. However, the change as noted by listening has been that the
announcers use code initials instead.

If an announcer writes a continuity or sketch or otherwise deserves
credit as an author he will receive it, the same as any other author.

The trial of the semi-anonymous system is the result of criticism of
announcers pushing themselves forward too much and making it appear as
if they were more important than the program. However, when a reporter
canvassed the WOR announcers none of them found himself in this class.
Nevertheless the new method prevails, and if it succeeds it may be
retained, or even the initials will be omitted, making for complete
anonymity, except so far as listeners now recognize the voices of
announcers they've been hearing for years.

The station's announcement about announcers included the following:

"We feel that radio has progressed beyond the novelty stage. It is the
program and not the announcer that the audience is interested in. For
that reason, the announcer, for station purposes, will sign off using
a simple three-letter call word. In such cases where the continuity
has been compiled or annotated by an announcer, he will be allowed to
use his name."

Singer Campaigns to Prove Grandfather Invented Radio

by Allen G. Breed, Associated Press, April 1991

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - The history books say Italian physicist Guglielmo
Marconi invented wireless telegraphy - the forerunner of radio. But a
pop singer is out to prove his grandfather developed the concept
first.

So far, however, few people are tuning in to the arguments of Keith
Stubblefield that Nathan B. Stubblefield is radio's true inventor.

A Smithsonian Institution expert dismisses Stubblefield's
contributions, and even in Kentucky, the elder Stubblefield's home
state, the broadcasting association has refused to recognize him as
radio's inventor.

Marconi is credited with developing wireless telegraphy in 1896.

In 1892, Stubblefield amazed onlookers in Murray, his eastern Kentucky
hometown, when he transmitted the human voice using what he called
"wireless telephony," says Stubblefield's grandson, who uses the name
Troy Cory in his singing career.

Stubblefield never got a patent for the device, although he did patent
improvements to wireless telephone equipment in 1908. He died a pauper
in 1928.

Now, almost 100 years later, Cory, 47, says he is nearly obsessed with
having his grandfather recognized.

"We want to educate the public, we want to educate the people to show
them how he did it," Cory said. "The children are being educated that
the wrong person invented the radio,and they don't know that it was an
American ... They've been defrauded by some teacher, by some
book."

To change that, Cory has designed a poster honoring Stubblefield, and
his Television International Magazine is editing a history of radio
that cites Stubblefield as its inventor.

Cory has some supporters. Kentucky Governor Wallace Wilkinson signed a
resolution last month declaring Stubblefield the inventor of
radio.

But at a meeting here Thursday, the Kentucky Broadcasters' Association
amended the resolution so that it only recognized Stubblefield's
"contribution to the early development of wireless transmissions."

Cory was furious. Outside the meeting, he confronted Francis Nash, who
was commissioned by the group to write a history of Kentucky
broadcasting and who urged that the resolution be amended.

Nash, a 25-year broadcasting veteran, said there was no evidence that
Stubblefield's device used modulation.

"He was using methods other people had already abandoned," Nash said.
"It wasn't really radio."

Elliot Sivovitch, a specialist in radio and television history with
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said there were dozens of
experiments similar to Stubblefield's between 1865 and 1900.

But Cory called Nash a "pseudo-intellect," accused him of fraud for
altering the resolution and vowed to sue.

"It's not a joke. This is serious to me," he said.

He said he also may sue the National Association of Broadcasters,
which failed to recognize his grandfather at its convention in Las
Vegas last month.

Did Nathan B. Stubblefield Invent Radio?

Why Do People Insist That He, Not Marconi, Invented
Radio?

This article appeared in Popular Communications in August 1991. It is reproduced
here with permission.

By JOSH MORGAN, KKY4WS

A growing chorus of voices continues to insist the true inventor of
radio was some one by the name of Nathan B. Stubblefield.
Stubblefield's own descendants are included in this chorus demanding
what they feel is the credit due him for his work. As these voices
grow louder and more demanding, let's see who Nathan Bowman
Stubblefield was, and what he did.

Stubblefield hailed from Murray, a community of 14,000 souls located
in the tobacco-growing area of southwestern Kentucky. He was born in
the summer of 1860, and resided in Murray all of his 68 years. He was
known as the town's resident eccentric experimenter. Yes, he had a
small vegetable farm with which he supported his family, but he spent
all of his free time chasing a dream. His dream consisted of the
concept that people could converse with one another at a distance,
and that it could be done without the need for wires to link their
locations together.

Mostly he worked in secret, fearing the theft of his apparatus,
notes, and ideas. His workshop was in back of his residence, a humble
shack on the outskirts of Murray. It was ringed by an overgrown
hedge. His security system included a shotgun, just in case the
remoteness of his shack and the dense foliage didn't give visitors
the message that they weren't invited. When he went into town, he
was the center of curiosity.

Unfortunately, Stubblefield's obsession with secrecy may have been a
major contributing factor in his works having gone virtually
unrecognized while others who came after him garnered all of the
laurels, glory, and money. It does appear that Stubblefield did do
pioneering work in telecommunications, but his unwillingness to allow
others to use his ideas worked against him.

To put this into a time perspective, Stubblefield was probably
working on his concepts about the same time that Alexander Graham
Bell was developing the telephone (patented 1876), and the formulas
relating to radio waves published by Maxwell in 1865 and 1873. In
1888, Hertz proved that radio waves existed. Marconi's early
telegraphic experiments were in 1894, with his radio telegraph device
patent issued in June, 1896. Marconi's first telegraph transmission
across the Atlantic took place in December of 1901.

With this in mind, know that Stubblefield had success transmitting
the human voice over what he called a Vibrating Telephone, a wireless
circuit in 1885! Not long after this experiment, he told a local
friend, Duncan Holt, "Duncan, I've done it. I've been able to talk
without wires. . . all of two hundred yards. . . and it will work
anywhere." Holt never saw the apparatus, however.

The first record of anybody actually seeing Stubblefield's wireless
apparatus was in 1892. He showed it to Dr. Rainey T. Wells, Who was a
prominent educator, and who also happened to be an attorney. Wells
Wrote of this years later, "One day Stubblefield invited me to his
farm for a demonstration of some kind of wireless outfit. Mind you,
this was in the days when telephones were rare.

"He had a shack about four feet square near his house, from which he
took an ordinary telephone receiver such as we have today, but
entirely without wires. Handing me this, he asked me to walk some
distance away and listen. I had already reached my post which
happened to be in an apple orchard when I heard, 'Hello, Rainey' come
booming out of the receiver.

"I jumped a foot and said to myself, 'This fellow is fooling me. He
has wires someplace.' I moved to the side about twenty feet but all
the while he kept talking to me. I talked back and he answered me as
a human voice sounds over a telephone today. But there were no
wires."

Sometimes, after that, he would allow certain carefully selected
persons to witness private demonstrations of his system.
Stubblefield's family physician told of being given a private
demonstration that included Nathan talking and playing the harmonica.

Also, in 1892, he began giving public demonstrations of his apparatus
in the Murray town square. Hundreds of people came from miles around
to watch as Stubblefield set up one set near the courthouse, and the
other set about 250 feet away without any wires between the devices.
The crowd startled at watching Stubblefield speak into one unit in a
normal tone of voice, and hearing his voice emerge clearly from the
distant apparatus.

Perhaps these people scarcely realized the significance of
Stubblefield's device. But remember, that he was considered by local
residents as merely the strange and eccentric inventor who lived on
the outskirts of town. They didn't know what to make of
Stubblefield. It's doubtful that they took him very seriously, or
his invention either. That didn't discourage Stubblefield at all.

In March of 1902, Stubblefield loaded his wireless telephone aboard
the steam launch Bartholdi on the Potomac River. As the vessel made
its way up river from Washington, Stubblefield showed his radio at
work by transmitting his voice to a group of scientists standing on
the bank of the river.

The prestigious Washington Post quickly recognized that the reclusive
inventor had developed something their readers would like to know
more about. On March 21, 1902, the newspaper published an interview
containing just about the only words Stubblefield ever had to divulge
to the public regarding his device. He still wasn't divulging much,
but it was amazingly perceptive, and more than he had said until
then.

"My invention is capable of sending simultaneous messages from a
central distribution station over a very wide territory. For
instance, anyone having a receiving instrument, which would consist
merely of a telephone receiver and a few feet of wire, and a
signaling gong could, upon being signaled by a transmitting station
. . . be informed of weather news. My apparatus is capable of sending
out a gong signal as well as voice messages. Eventually it will be
used for the general transmission of news of every description.

"I have as yet devised no method whereby it can be used with privacy.
Wherever there is a receiving station, the signal and the receiving
message may be heard simultaneously. Eventually I, or someone, will
discover a method of tuning the transmitting and receiving
instruments so that each will answer its own mate.

"The system can be developed until messages by voice can be sent and
heard all over the country, to Europe, all over the world."

This didn't tell anything of the theory or design of his device,
which he was reticent to discuss. His son, Bernard, who was born
around 1890, was perhaps the only person ever to be present when he
was working.

In 1930, after Stubblefield's death two years earlier, The New York
Sun offered a vague description of the apparatus.

"His transmitting apparatus was placed in a box four feet high and
six inches in width. A coil of heavy wire was at one end and led to
the ground. Stubblefield made the startling statement that the
earth's electrical waves furnished the power by which an ordinary
power transmitter was operated. About a quarter of a mile away
another box was fastened to a stump. There were wires leading to the
ground and a pair of telephone receivers on top.

"Examination showed that the wires terminated in each case at steel
rods topped with a ball of iron which was nickel-plated.

"Stubblefield claimed that the earth and all about it is charged with
electrical power, part of which he was harnessing--and that in time
spoken messages could be sent without wires thousands of miles.

"He admitted that he had developed a radio-frequency current through
a battery of his own arrangement, and an earth battery, following
which he devised a system of modulation and an adjustment for tuning.
The detector was a receiving coil, tapped for adjustable inductance."

From a vantage point of more than sixty years after this description,
we still can't get much of an insight into what Stubblefield was
really doing except to guess that it may have relied upon induction.
Undoubtedly the telephone equipment itself was standard, but had been
adapted for wireless operation. The transmitter he designed most
likely included in its components some tuning coils, some type of
amplifier, and a ground battery cell system. The use of rods placed
in the earth could suggest a sub-strata communications system, but
the knobs atop the rods could have meant they were antennas. And we
don't know if the distance separating the placement of the rods was
critical.

For years, many friends told him to patent his invention, but
Stubblefield refused. He said it needed more work to get it
perfected. One patent, No. 887357, issued on May 12, 1908, was given
to Stubblefield for a radiotelephone device.

You may question why Stubblefield failed to attain general
recognition for his work and become widely known as radio's inventor.
He certainly appeared to be standing on the threshold of destiny when
he gave his 1902 demonstrations on the Potomac. Somehow, though,
after that he seemed to fade from the public eye.

A probable contributing factor was his long-standing fear of
permitting anyone to buy into his invention, which would have
provided sufficient funds to develop and market the device. It wasn't
that nobody wanted to invest. Many big city investors traveled to
Murray to entice Stubblefield after the St. Louis Dispatch carried a
story about him on January 10, 1902. He turned them all away,
including (friends said) one attempting to give him a check for
$40,000. It's said that he once turned down an offer for $500,000
for his invention, declaring it was worth double that amount.

But there are rumors. One story says that he took the device with
him in a trunk when he visited Washington in 1912. When he returned
from Washington, nobody saw the device. Had it been stolen?
Stubblefield became embittered and disillusioned.

Apparently, the facts seem to be that in order to raise funds,
Stubblefield had been persuaded to exchange all of his secrets,
rights, and equipment for a half-million shares in a company called
The Wireless Telephone company of America. The company was a fraud,
its stock was totally worthless. Wireless Telephone had no interest
in developing and marketing his invention, only in selling more of
its worthless shares to gullible suckers. He had been swindled.

Not long after, Stubblefield's house had been taken by creditors. He
left his wife and nine children, moving to nearby Alamo, KY. There he
built and moved into a crude tin hut insulated with corn husks. The
house in which the family resided later burned down under mysterious
circumstances. In complete isolation and obscurity, Stubblefield
became a recluse and continued to work secretly on his inventions for
years from his little shack. Neighbors reported hearing strange
disembodied wireless voices resulting from his experiments, and they
also described wireless electric lights in the trees near his shanty.
But then, they had always expected the unusual from Nathan. On March
28, 1928, he died of starvation and, some said, a broken heart. He
was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at Bowman's Cemetery, near
Murray. A tragic end to a true eccentric genius.

In 1930, the New York Supreme Court ruled that Stubblefield's heirs
had proven all of the details in their claim for patent rights, but
that the statute of limitations had voided their claims regarding
royalties.

Murray, KY honors Stubblefield as the inventor of radio. In 1930,
they put up a memorial to Stubblefield on the campus of Murray State
University. In 1948, twenty years after Stubblefield's death, a
broadcast station in Murray went on the air, taking the call letters
WNBS to pay homage to Stubblefield. Some books do offer passing
mention to Stubblefield, but usually little information is given.

Stubblefield's descendants continue to proclaim the invention of
radio by their esteemed ancestor, and press for appropriate
recognition to be given to him. Many historians feel that these
claims have merit, but they do wish that old Nathan had been less
secretive and reclusive.

The author wishes to thank Christopher Adams, of Murray, KY, and also
Steve Cole, of New York, NY, for the information they provided in
conjunction with this story. A lengthy, and excellent story about
Stubblefield was called "The Man History Overheard," by Harvey
Geller. It was included in "Circular," Vol. 7, No. 34, of December
8, 1975, published by Warner-Reprise Records. Another story about
Stubblefield appeared in the July, 1961, issue of Electronics
Illustrated.

More on Stubblefield

The following message was posted to an Internet mailing list in 1995 by John F. Schneider.

The material on Nathan B. Stubblefield has all been very interesting, and it
caused me to dig out an article from my files which addresses the technical
details better than anything I have seen. The article is called "Who Really
Invented Radio? --the twisted tale of Nathan B. Stubblefield", by Larry
Kahaner WB2NEL. It appeared in the December, 1980 issue of 73 Magazine.
Kahaner travelled to Murray, KY and did his research for the article there.
While I'm not equipped to scan the entire article, I'd like to repeat some
important quotes from the article:

"It appeared that much of what has been written about Stubblefield was based
on the research of two prominent Murray citizens who are less than unbiased
about the role of the farmer/inventory in radio's early days.

"Riley Kaye W4LMF holds a different view of the Stubblefield story. 'I
think Stubblefield invented the induction telephone. He used loops above
the ground. There appeared to be no carrier. He used audio frequencies,
and that's where the challenge comes in,' said the man who worked for seven
years as chief instructor at RCA and high frequency development engineer for
Western Electric in Chicago. 'There is no proof that he used radiation.
There's no proof that he used resonant circuits. That would be radio.'
Kaye, 9DKN during the sparkgap days, added: 'Nobody can challenge that he
didn't invent the wireless telephone and that he was the first to transmit
voice without wires. He deserves a lot of credit and Murray can be proud of
him.'

"Another local ham takes issue with the Stubblefield saga. William Call
KJ4W is vice president and trustee of the Murray State University Amateur
Radio Club. 'It may have been magnetic induction,' he said, 'But you won't
find that opinion around here much because it offends people. They want to
believe he invented radio. On what I've seen, I don't believe he invented
radio, but one thing almost everyone agrees on is that Stubblefield was a
genius.' "

The most interesting part of the article is a copy of the patent document
for patent No. 357,887 that Stubblefield was issued in 1908. It is reprinted
in its entirety and without comment, allowing the reader to draw his own
conclusions. It shows a giant multi-turn induction loop mounted on
telephone poles and surrounding a complete section of river, road or
railroad track. The circuit diagram for the attached transmitting apparatus
shows a battery, a microphone, earphone, and a transmit/receive switch.
There are no RF components in the circuit. The receiver consists of a
smaller loop mounted on the roof of the boat or wagon traversing the route.
Its attached circuit is identical. It can apparently communicate with the
stationary station only when it is inside the confines of the loop.

It seems obvious that Stubblefield had developed an audio frequency
induction system. I've seen this method used in museums, and it allows a
person to carry a passive listening device from exhibit to exhibit. When
he approaches each exhibit, he hears an aural description of that exhibit.
The signal falls off very rapidly as he leaves the exhibit, because the
signal is just a magnetic field (if you will, it's a loosely-coupled
transformer), and there is no electrical field. If you raise the frequency
of the signal, at some point both magnetic and electrical fields appear.
This is radio, and signals now travel great distances from the transmitting
device. It is then necessary to modulate this high frequency signal to
allow transmission of the audio information. This is a much more complex
and more useful technology.

Stubblefield obviously invented the first wireless telephone, and was the
first person to transmit the human voice. But it was not radio. Radio is a
much more complex technical process, and there was no single inventor.
Rather, like most technologies, it resulted from the combined efforts of a
number of scientists and inventors who each built upon the others' work.
This requires a sharing of information, something Stubblefield was obviously
not willing to do. For this reason, his research represented a scientific
"dead end".

I enjoy receiving the articles and comments of others through the old radio list
server. Thanks for including me.

John Schneider

Radio Service Bulletin, Aug. 31, 1927

REGULATION GOVERNING THE BROADCASTING OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTIONS

The Federal Radio Commission finds that while the broadcasting of
music performed through the agency of mechanical reproductions, such
as records or perforated rolls, is not in itself objectionable, the
failure clearly to announce the nature of such broadcasting is in some
instances working what is in effect a fraud upon the listening public.
The commission therefore hereby orders that, effective August 21,
1927, all broadcasts of music performed through the agency of
mechanical reproductions shall be clearly announced as such with the
announcement of each and every number thus broadcast, and that proved
failure to make such announcement shall be deemed by the commission
cause for action under section 32 of the radio act of 1927. -- General
Order No. 16, Aug. 9, 1927.

Relay Broadcast Stations (1927)

The following list was taken from the Radio Service Bulletin of
September 30, 1927.

Call

City

State

Frequency

Power

Station Controlled By

Other

1XAA

Providence

RI

1499

7.5

Stanley N. Read

1XY

Tilton

NH

2855, 2751

50 to 250

Booth Radio Laboratories

2XAL

Coytesville

NJ

9700

500

Experimenters Publishing Co.

2XAO

MU-1

...

2830

100

Atlantic Broadcasting Co.

yacht portable

2XAQ

Newark

NJ

4610

50

L. Bamberger & Co.

2XBA

Newark

NJ

4600

50

WAAM (Inc.)

2XBH

Coney Island (Brooklyn)

NY

5550

150

Charles G. Unger

2XE

Richmond Hill

NY

1270, 2828

50

Atlantic Broadcasting Co.

2XZ

Bellmore

NY

610

50000

National Broadcasting Co.

3XL

Bound Brook

NJ

5000

30000

R. C. A.

4XE

Winter Park

FL

variable to 1499

250

Wm. Justice Lee, USNR

6XA

Los Angeles

CA

2800

100

Los Angeles Evening Express

6XAF

Los Angeles

CA

2770

100

Clarence B. Juneau

6XAI

Los Angeles

CA

4540

50

Los Angeles Radio Club

6XAK

Eureka

CA

2770

50

F. Wellington Morse

6XAL

Los Angeles

CA

2770

50

L. E. Taft

6XAN

Los Angeles

CA

2830

250

Freeman Lang

6XAR

San Francisco

CA

9369

50

Julius Brunton & Sons Co.

portable

6XAU

Los Angeles

CA

2880

50

Times Mirror Co.

6XAZ

San Diego

CA

2828

30

Nelson Radio

portable

6XBA

Los Angeles

CA

2770

250

Echophone Manufacturing Co.

6XBH

Alma (Holy City)

CA

9672, 5657, 4759, 2810

50

W. E. Riker

6XBR

Los Angeles

CA

7496, 2855

50

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Studios

6XBX

Venice

CA

2855

50

McWhinnie Electric Co.

7XAB

Spokane

WA

2830

50

Symons Investment Co.

portable

7XAO

Portland

OR

5600

100

Wilbur Jerman (Inc.)

7XC

Seattle

WA

2850

5 to 250

Northwest Radio Service Co.

8XAL

Harrison

OH

5760

500

Crosley Radio Corporation

8XAO

Detroit

MI

9370

75

WJR (Inc.)

8XF

Cleveland

OH

4540

500

Radio Air Service Corporation

8XJ

Columbus

OH

5550

50 to 250

Ohio State University

8XK

East Pittsburgh

PA

variable

40000

Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co.

8XP

East Pittsburgh

PA

29982 to 1999

500

Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co.

9XAB

Omaha

NE

2855

50

R. J. Rockwell

9XU

Council Bluffs

IA

4910

500

Mona Motor Oil Co.

2 Killed as Plane Hits Radio Tower in Rainstorm Here

This article appeared in the New York Times, Monday, August 28, 1967.

At least two persons were killed yesterday when a single-engined
plane crashed into a Bronx radio transmitter tower during a blinding
rainstorm that stalled traffic, flooded basements, knocked out subway
service and disrupted airline operations here.

The crash demolished the 541-foot tower on High Island near Orchard
Beach and silenced the AM broadcasting operations of WCBS and WNBC.

The stations went off the air abruptly at 4:21 P. M. as thousands of
bewildered listeners twisted their dials, wondering what had
happened.

WCBS had been scheduled to begin all-news programming at 5:30 this
morning on its AM frequency. The station announced last night that
it would still try to do so, using an auxiliary WOR radio transmitter
in New Jersey. If this transmitter could not be tuned in time, the
new format will be broadcast over WCBS-FM, station officials said.

WNBC quickly made arrangements for temporary use of the WABC-AM
auxiliary transmitter in Lodi, N. J. The station's signal from Lodi,
however, was only 10,000 watts, compared to its normal 50,000 watt
transmission.

The FM broadcasts of the two stations, which are transmitted from the
Empire State Building, were not affected. [...]

The plane that crashed into the radio tower was a Piper Cherokee that
authorities said was owned by the Zodiac Construction Corporation of
33 Sherman Avenue, Plainview, L. I., and leased by the Arrow Aviation
Company at La Guardia Airport.

A spokesman for Arrow, who refused to give his name, said the plane
had been taken without authorization. It was reported to have left
La Guardia around 1:30 P. M. bound for East Hampton, L. I. It landed
there about an hour later.

At 4:20 P. M., apparently on its way back to La Guardia, the plane
ran into blinding rain and fog and was seen circling around the radio
tower on High Island, which lies between City Island and Orchard
beach in the Bronx.

A minute later, the plane slammed into the radio tower, which is
owned by the Columbia Broadcasting System and the National
Broadcasting Company. All but the lower 60 feet of the steel frame
tower was shattered and large insulators were scattered around the
quarter-mile island.

Tom Hertzog, a caretaker on High Island, heard the sound of the
plane's engine "revving up like he was trying to gain altitude," then
heard a crash.

"I said to my son, 'Hit the deck, a plane just hit the tower,'" Mr.
Hertzog said.

Sections of the steel tower crashed to the ground near the
caretaker's house, but he was not hurt. The green and white plane
plunged into Long Island Sound about 200 yards east of High Island
and sank in about 50 feet of water.

Two bodies floated to the surface almost immediately and were
recovered by a police launch.

The victims were tentatively identified as Ronald Bumbalo, 31 years
old, of 233 East 60th Street, and either William Sedutto, 32, of 29
Perry Street or Joseph Abraham, of 45 East 9th Street. Papers with
both the names of Mr. Sedutto and Mr. Abraham were found on one of
the victims.

The police said that members of Mr. Bumbalo's family had expressed
the belief, on the basis of descriptions given over the telephone,
that Mr. Bumbalo had been in the plane.

Dr. James Bumbalo of Jamestown, N. Y., Mr. Bumbalo's brother, was due
to arrive here today to identify the body. Members of Mr. Bumbalo's
family said he was employed by the American Management Association of
135 West 50th Street.

It was believed that a third man was aboard the plane and frogmen
searched the area for several hours before discontinuing their hunt.
The search will be resumed this morning. The plane was signed out of
La Guardia Airport and East Hampton by Peter Barris of 19-24 81st
Street, Jackson Heights, Queens.

WCBS has decided to initiate the all-news programming because of
sagging ratings on its AM operation. Under the plan, the station will
broadcast only news from 5:30 A. M. to 8:10 P. M. weekdays except
from 10 A. M. to 11 A. M., when Arthur Godfrey's show is broadcast.
That show is scheduled to be shifted to a 1:10 P. M.-to-2 P. M. slot
in October.

From 8:10 P. M. to 11:30 P. M., the station will continue to
broadcast the Jim Gearhart disk-jockey show, and from 11:30 P. M. to
5:30 A. M. it will carry its usual music-to-dawn program.

Weekend programming will remain as it was until after the first of
the year, when it, too, will become all news. The news format will
be expanded next year to run from 5:30 A. M. to 11:30 P. M.

WINS became New York's first all-news station in April, 1965. [...]

(Deleted portions of the article above, indicated by [...],
described the unusual recent weather conditions, and did not
pertain directly to the tower collapse.)

WCBS-AM Goes Back on Air, Plans to Put Up a New Tower

This article appeared in the New York Times, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 1967.

By MARTIN ARNOLD

WCBS radio went back on the air with its new AM broadcasting
operations at 9:17 last night. The station's programs and those of
WNBC-AM were knocked off the air Sunday when a single-engined plane
hit their transmitting tower in the Bronx, killing at least two
persons.

WCBS returned to the air broadcasting with a 10,000-watt transmitter
in Long Island City, Queens, that was lent to it for the emergency by
radio station WLIB.

Joseph Dembo, the newly appointed general manager of WCBS, said he
had "no idea" when the 541-foot tower that was linked to the
station's 50,000-watt transmitter at High Island, near Orchard Beach,
would be repaired. The tower was demolished.

WNBC radio, which shared the tower, also was knocked off the air at
4:21 P. M. Sunday, but quickly made arrangements for temporary use of
the WABC-AM auxiliary transmitter in Lodi, N. J. This transmitter is
only 10,000 watts and WNBC normally transmits at 50,000 watts. WNBC
was back on the air at 5:27 A. M. yesterday.

The bodies of two persons who died in the plane crash were identified
by relatives yesterday. The police, using three scuba divers and two
boats, continued to search Long Island Sound for the plane and for
bodies of other persons believed to have been on it. The police said
that the plane might have been carrying six or seven persons. A wing
was recovered.

WCBS-AM's new all-news and information format was to start yesterday
morning. The switch from the music, talk and news programs, planned
for months, came after lagging ratings and sagging profits.

The new programming was started, but on the station's FM facilities,
which had its regular 5:30 A. M.-to-8:10 P. M. programming
pre-empted. Radio station WINS has been an all-news station since
April, 1965.

Mr. Dembo said that an attempt would be made to set up a temporary
tower on High Island, possibly by sometime today, to enable WCBS to
start AM broadcasting again, but on 10,000 watts.

He said there was "a silver lining" to the problem. "Ten years ago,"
he said, "it wouldn't have happened but now all the radio and network
people have called us and offered to help out."

Plans to use WOR's 10,000-watt transmitter in Carteret, N. J., did
not work out because of technical problems.

With 10,000 watts, WNBC and WCBS can transit to the five boroughs and
nearby suburban communities. Fifty thousand watts supplies enough
power for the city and 18 metropolitan-area counties.

The known victims in the accident were identified by the police as
William Sedutto, 32, of 29 Perry Street, and Ronald Bumbalo, 31, of
233 East 60th Street.

The plane crashed while apparently going to La Guardia Airport from
East Hampton, L. I.

It was a single-engined Piper Cherokee owned by the Zodiac
Construction Company of Plainview, L. I., but on lease to Arrow
Aviation Company, which charters planes at La Guardia Airport.

Stanley Leonard, an official of Arrow, said yesterday that the plane,
one of six operated by Arrow, had been taken on an unauthorized
flight.

It apparently was signed out from La Guardia and East Hampton, Mr.
Leonard said, by Peter Barris, a licensed pilot, of 19-24 81st
Street, Jackson Heights, Queens, who had previously rented aircraft
from Arrow.

"We grounded all our planes at 11 A. M. because of the bad weather,"
Mr. Leonard said. "Barris was one of several people in our office
when we grounded them. He left with the rest."

Mr. Leonard said that he had approved closing the Arrow office at 2
P. M. Sunday after being told by telephone that the six planes were
"all secured on the ground."

"At 3:30, someone went back to the office and called me to say one of
the planes was missing from the line. We called all over and found
that it had been on East Hampton," Mr. Leonard said. "It was an
unauthorized flight, and we filed a stolen-from-airport report."

The police were unable to find Mr. Barris yesterday.

First Stations by State, According to Compton's Encyclopedia

The definitive list of earliest and oldest surviving radio
stations by state has been compiled by Thomas White and is
available at his excellent website United States Early
Radio History. White's list is generally based on the date each
station was first authorized as what we now call a broadcast station.
These licenses usually specified a wavelength of 360 meters and the
first such license was granted to WBZ in 1921.

In many cases the determination of the first station in a state is
open to dispute. For example, according to research by Donna Halper,
Massachusetts amateur station 1XE (later broadcast station WGI)
transmitted music in 1916, long before WBZ was granted the first
360-meter authorization. In addition, several of the dates given by
Compton's and the World Book Encyclopedia are based on
claims by the stations that they should be linked to earlier stations
that operated with different call letters. For example, WQAM claims
to have begun broadcasting in 1921 although the WQAM call was not
issued by the Department of Commerce until 1923.

Some of these claims seem rather dubious. For example, Barry Mishkind
says that, according to Ed Brouder's research, there is no connection
between WKAV and the earlier WLNH except the frequency and the sales
manager. WKAV was shut down by the FRC and an different person
financed the succeeding station.

The following is the information taken from the articles on
each of the fifty states from Compton's
Encyclopedia.

*KFXD was originally licensed to Logan Utah in 1922. It moved to
Jerome in 1926 and to Nampa in 1929. WDZ Tuscola moved to Decatur.
WHAV became WDEL. KFAD became KTAR. WDBT became WFOR. WOU became
KOWH. WSAZ became WSBT. KZN became KSL. WKAV became WLNH.

First Stations by State, According to The World Book Encyclopedia

The following is the information taken from the articles on each of the fifty
states from The World Book Encyclopedia (1992).

ALABAMA. WAPI of Birmingham is Alabama's oldest
commercial radio station. It began in 1922 in Auburn as WMAV.

ALASKA. The first radio station in Alaska, KFQD, started
broadcasting from Anchorage in 1924.

ARIZONA. KTAR, then called KFAD, was Arizona's first
commercial radio station. It began broadcasting in Phoenix in 1922.

ARKANSAS. The state's first radio station, WOK, began
broadcasting in Pine Bluff in 1920.

CALIFORNIA. In 1909, David Herrold began operating a radio
station in connection with a radio school in San Jose. This was
three years before Congress established radio licensing requirements.
In 1913, Herrold adopted the call letters SJN. The station's letters
were changed to KQW in 1921, and to KCBS in 1949. California's first
commercial radio station, KQL, in Los Angeles, was licensed in 1921.
KWG in Stockton was also licensed in 1921, and is still broadcasting.

COLORADO. The state's first commercial radio station, KFKA in
Greeley, began broadcasting in 1921.

CONNECTICUT. The state's first radio station, WDRC, opened in
Hartford in 1922.

DELAWARE. Delaware's first radio station, WDEL, began
broadcasting in Wilmington in 1922.

FLORIDA. Florida's first radio station, WQAM in
Miami, went on the air in 1921.

GEORGIA. The Atlanta Journal established the South's
first radio station, WSB, in 1922. WSB became the first radio station
in the United States to have regular nightly programs and a slogan,
"The Voice of the South." WSB also originated the use of musical
notes for station identification.

HAWAII. The state's first two radio stations, KDYX
and KGU, began broadcasting in Hawaii in 1922.

IDAHO. Idaho's first radio station, KFAU (now KIDO),
began commercial broadcasting in 1922 at Boise.

ILLINOIS. Illinois' oldest radio station, WDZ in
Decatur, started in Tuscola in 1921.

INDIANA. The South Bend Tribune established the
state's first radio station, WSBT, in 1921.

IOWA. Iowa's first radio station, WSUI, began operating at the
University of Iowa in 1919. Station WOC in Davenport became the
earliest commercial station in the state in 1922.

KANSAS. Kansas' first radio station was KFH. It
began broadcasting from Wichita in 1922.

KENTUCKY. The state's first radio station, WHAS,
began broadcasting in Louisville in 1922.

LOUISIANA. Louisiana's first radio stations, WWL in
New Orleans and KEEL in Shreveport, started broadcasting in 1922.

MAINE. Maine's first radio station, WABI, began operating in
Bangor in 1924.

MARYLAND. Maryland's oldest radio stations, WCAO and
WFBR of Baltimore, began broadcasting in 1922.

MASSACHUSETTS. The state's first radio station, WGI,
began broadcasting in Medford in 1920.

MICHIGAN. Radio Station WWJ in Detroit began
broadcasting in 1920. WWJ and Pittsburgh's KDKA were the nation's
first regular commercial radio stations.

MINNESOTA. Minnesota's first licensed radio station
was WLB (now KUOM), an educational station owned by the University of
Minnesota. The station was licensed in Minneapolis in 1922. The
first commercial radio station, WDGY, began broadcasting from
Minneapolis in 1923.

MISSISSIPPI. No information provided.

MISSOURI. The first radio station in Missouri, WEW of
St. Louis University, began broadcasting in 1921.

MONTANA. The first radio station, KFBB, began
broadcasting at Great Falls in 1922.

NEBRASKA. Nebraska Wesleyan University established
Nebraska's first radio station, WCAJ, in Lincoln in 1921. The first
commercial station, WOAW (now WOW) began broadcasting from Omaha in
1923.

NEVADA. The state's first radio station, KOH, began
broadcasting from Reno in 1928.

NEW HAMPSHIRE. The first radio station in the state,
WLNH, was founded at Laconia in 1922.

NEW JERSEY. WJZ, the second licensed commercial
broadcasting station in the United States, was established in Newark
in 1921. This station now operates in New York City.

NEW MEXICO. The state's first radio station, KOB,
began from Albuquerque in 1922.

NEW YORK. The General Electric Company set up New
York's first radio station, WGY, in its Schenectady laboratories in
1922.

NORTH CAROLINA. North Carolina's oldest radio
station, WBT of Charlotte, began broadcasting in 1922.

NORTH DAKOTA. The first radio station in North
Dakota, WDAY, started broadcasting in Fargo in 1922.

OHIO. Ohio's oldest radio station, WHK, began broadcasting in
Cleveland in 1922. Also that year, Ohio State University in Columbus
started WOSU, the first educational radio station in North America.

OKLAHOMA. Station WKY in Oklahoma City, the state's
first commercial radio station, went on the air in 1921.

OREGON. Oregon's first commercial radio station, KGW,
opened in Portland in 1922.

PENNSYLVANIA. In 1919, Frank Conrad, an engineer of
the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, set up a broadcasting station,
8XK, in his Wilkinsburg home. The following year, Conrad and some of
the other Westinghouse engineers established radio station KDKA in
Pittsburgh. It began broadcasting on Nov. 2, 1920. KDKA and
Detroit's WWJ were the first regular commercial radio stations in the
United States.

RHODE ISLAND. Rhode Island's first radio stations,
WEAN and WJAR, began broadcasting from Providence in 1922.

SOUTH CAROLINA. The state's first radio station,
WSPA, began broadcasting in Spartanburg in 1930.

SOUTH DAKOTA. The South Dakota School of Mines and
Technology established the state's first radio station, WCAT. The
station was licensed in Rapid City in 1922.

TENNESSEE. Tennessee's first radio station, WNAV,
began broadcasting at Knoxville in 1922.

TEXAS. Texas' first radio station, WRR, began
broadcasting in Dallas in 1920.

UTAH. The state's first radio station, KZN (now KSL),
began broadcasting in Salt Lake City in 1922.

VERMONT. Vermont's first radio station, WSYB, opened
in Rutland in 1930.

VIRGINIA. Virginia's first commercial radio station,
WTAR, began in Norfolk in 1923.

WASHINGTON. Washington's first commercial radio
broadcast was made from Everett in 1920 by station KFBL (now
KRKO).

WEST VIRGINIA. The state's first radio station, WSAZ,
began broadcasting from Huntington in 1923.

WISCONSIN. The history of radio in Wisconsin dates
from 1909. That year, University of Wisconsin scientists conducted
wireless experiments. The university radio station was licensed as
9XM in 1916, and the station became WHA in 1922.

WYOMING. The state's first radio station, KDFN (now
KTWO), began broadcasting at Casper in 1930.

List Of Ultra-Short-Wave Broadcasting Stations

The following is taken from 1944 UK publication "Manual of
Short-Wave Technique and International Broadcast Reception."
Thanks to William R. Hepburn (hepburnw@middletown.total.net), who
provided this list.

Station Call Letters

[The following is from The Principles Underlying Radio
Communication - U.S. Army Signal Corps Pamphlet No. 40, 2nd ed.,
revised to May 24, 1921, p. 563.]

All radio stations throughout the world under the jurisdiction of any
countries adhering to the London International Radiotelegraph
Conference of 1912 are assigned station calls consisting of three or
four letters. Practically all countries of importance have adhered to
this convention. There is no duplication of calls. Groups of call
letters have been assigned to each of the countries under the
authority of the convention. The calls assigned cover both land and
ship stations. [...]

United States Government and Commercial Calls. The
call letters assigned to the United States are all three and four
letter combinations beginning with the letter N and all beginning with
the letter W, and all combinations from KDA to KZZ, inclusive. All
combinations beginning with the letter N are reserved for United
States Government stations, and have in most cases been assigned to
stations of the United States Navy. The combinations from WUA to WVZ
and from WXA to WZZ are reserved for stations of the United States
Army. Calls assigned to the United States beginning with K and W, not
assigned to Government stations, are reserved for commercial stations
open to public and limited commercial service. In addition to calls
consisting entirely of letters, certain Army and Navy stations use
calls consisting in part of numbers.

United States Amateur Calls. The station license
granted for the operation of an amateur transmitting station in the
United States designates a call which is to be used by that stations
at all times. The call consists usually of a number followed by two
letters, as 1AB, but may consist of a number followed by three
letters, as 1ABC. The number is the radio district in which the
station is located. Experiment stations have calls consisting of a
number followed by two or three letters, of which the first one is X,
as 1XA. Technical and training school stations have calls consisting
of a number followed by two or three letters of which the first one is
Y, as 1YA . Special amateur stations have calls consisting of a
number followed by two or three letters of which the fist one is Z, as
1ZA.... No station is allowed to transmit unless a station license
has been issued. The radio regulations formerly provided that after
an application for a station license had been filed and pending the
issue of the station license, a provisional call could be used and the
station could transmit. This provision has been repealed.

K Calls in the East, W Calls in the West

[The following was posted by Scott Fybush in
rec.radio.broadcasting, and is reproduced here with his
permission.]

There are precisely four scenarios under which a radio station east of
the Mississippi can have a callsign beginning with K, or vice versa.

The first is the historical anomaly from the early 1920s under which
KDKA, KYW, and KQV received their calls. KDKA and KQV have always
been in Pittsburgh, and have at various times had FM and TV
counterparts (there is still a KDKA-TV, and in the past there have
been KDKA-FM and KQV-FM). The KYW calls began in Chicago in 1921, on
Westinghouse's station there. KYW moved itself to Philadelphia in
1934. In 1956, NBC more or less forced Westinghouse to trade KYW (and
WPTZ-TV) in Philadelphia for NBC's WTAM (along with WTAM-FM and
WNBK-TV) in Cleveland, under the threat that it would otherwise pull
WPTZ's lucrative NBC-TV affiliation. So the KYW calls moved to
Cleveland, where they were put not only on 1100 AM, but also on KYW-FM
105.7 and KYW-TV 3. In 1965, Westinghouse won its lawsuit against
NBC, and NBC was forced to return the Philadelphia stations and take
back its Cleveland outlets. Cleveland became WKYC-AM/FM/TV (the "KY"
was a reference to the KYW calls), and Philadelphia became KYW-AM/TV,
which it remains to this day.

The second way for a station to have "wrong" calls is to have been
licensed in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska,
Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, or Texas in the
1920s, before the K/W line was shifted east to the Mississippi River.
Many of these pioneer stations still exist and still bear W calls.
They (or their descendants) are:

The third way to have "wrong" calls is to be near the Mississippi
River. The FCC has long been somewhat relaxed about mixing W and K
calls in northern Minnesota and southern Louisiana, where the river's
course becomes twisted from the north/south line it follows for most
of the way. Markets such as Duluth and Minneapolis/St. Paul are well
split between W and K calls, often with little regard for which side
of the river the station is on. In Duluth's case, the FCC even
allowed some K calls over the state line into Superior, Wisconsin.

In recent years (beginning with KWK-FM Granite City IL), the FCC has
also become more relaxed about allowing the W/K line to blur elsewhere
along the river. Several St. Louis-area stations have W calls even
though they're in Missouri, or K calls in Illinois, thanks to the
FCC's liberalism in the last few years.

The fourth way to have "wrong" calls is to wait for the FCC to get
confused. There is at present exactly one station in this category,
KTGG(AM) Spring Arbor MI. It seems that when KTGG got its calls in
1984, someone at the FCC looked at "MI" and saw Missouri...and on went
the K call, which KTGG was somehow able to keep. Several other
stations have been assigned "wrong" calls by accident (the 106.9 in
Moultonborough NH was first given KNHX) but did not keep them.